Week 77: Athena, Florida

I skipped a week of posting because my brother came to visit, but two weeks ago I posted that I was in Florida, and now I feel like I have barely gotten started in the state, even though I am 90 miles in. I am not far from the northern border and only about 10 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the west, so I still have to go east and south a long way.

I walked straight through Tallahassee last week, and now I am on highway 98, which slips between some of the bigger Florida towns and will take me three-quarters of the way to Miami.

Tallahassee was in the news this week because a principal was fired from a charter school there after sixth grade students were shown a picture of the statue of David. As you can see, David is not wearing anything, so at least one parent objected. I guess I do not have much to say about that, except that it seems like a stupid issue, and I have to think the child of the parent who objected is going to become a very screwed up adult,  and I read some comments by the school board chair who fired the principal and who is clearly an idiot, and the whole state of Florida has gone crazy and is filled with morons, but otherwise I don't have anything to say.

Seventy-five days to go. Unless I cut more time off the trip, I will arrive in Miami June 9.

Week 75: Florida!

Yesterday I passed six million steps, or 3,000 miles, so now I have less than a million steps left. According to Google Maps, the Florida border is 3,001 miles from Cape Flattery, Washington, or 6,002,000 steps, and I passed that yesterday as well, so I am now in the last state on my journey, though still with a long way left to go.

One could maybe wonder what there is to do in a state like Arkansas, or Nebraska, or Idaho, but most people can probably think of a few things to see in Florida without any help from me - Disneyworld, Universal Studios, Miami, Cape Canaveral, the Everglades, the Keys, beaches, sun, oranges and alligators for a start - so I decided to do this state a little differently and, for the most part, show pictures of some of those famous places rather than the towns I find myself in each week.

Florida is the one state on the East Coast that I have been to numerous times. My dad was from Auburndale, Florida, and we visited my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins every few years when we were kids. I learned to swim there, and to water ski, swam across Lake Ariana once, and watched from the shore - along with a cop and about 30 other people - as dad and my cousin chased after a powerboat that was running around the lake with no driver because my cousin bailed out (they caught it.) I have been back a couple of times as an adult as well - the last time was in 2004 with Jackie and the boys.

I am about seven miles into Florida, on the Eastern end of the panhandle at the town of Havana, eighteen miles from Tallahassee and headed straight through the city, then east and south to Miami.

So the trip ends here in Florida, but no time soon. My spreadsheet says I have 89 days to go.

Week 74: Georgia

Stone Mountain

 There is a reason I chose a picture of Stone Mountain to represent Georgia: I have been to Stone Mountain, back when I was 14, and I vaguely remember the experience. I thought it was impressive. Recently, Stone Mountain has gotten some bad publicity because it is a celebration of the Confederacy, but unlike a statue of Robert E. Lee or Nathan Bedford Forrest, you can't just take it down, so I don't think it is going away.

I am in Donalsonville, Georgia this week, cutting through the southeast corner of the state, nowhere near Stone Mountain and already close enough to Florida that I hope to be there by next Sunday.

I passed a little milestone this week, as I am now counting down the last 100 days to Miami. Right now there are 97.5 days left.

February 2023

This picture is actually Russia, not Lacey

 I may have written this before, because February comes around every year, but I look forward to the month of February. In the Pacific Northwest, people are very aware of a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, because our winters are. in a word, depressing. I don't have anything that would be classified as a disorder, but starting in November, I find the winters... annoying, let's say.

More than the rain and the cold, it is the darkness that gets to be draining. The days here get very short, and especially when I was working, I would get up in darkness, commute to work in darkness, work all day indoors, commute home in darkness, and take a walk after dinner, at 7:30, in darkness that may as well have been midnight. In addition to the short days, we get a lot of cloudiness here, particularly in winter. We can go a week without seeing the sun.

So February is generally encouraging, as the days get noticeably longer and warmer, usually. And the days have gotten longer, no doubt about that. My plants in the backyard are putting out their first leaves, although they may regret that. But the weather has been cold, and we have a chance of snow during the next few days, with nighttime temperatures still below freezing.

Which is all a way of saying that, in February, my walking progress was pretty lackluster. Two times, I failed to get my 10,000 steps. My average steps per day was the lowest since last January, except for October when I was on vacation. I took zero days off of my projected end date, which is 103 days from now.

Even so, I averaged 11,000 steps per day for the month, with 3,000 steps to spare, and I trudged across Alabama, to the town of Cowarts, 20 miles from the Georgia border. I will be in Georgia by this weekend, in Florida the week after, and by the time I get to Florida, maybe the weather will be better, and we'll get this thing done.